U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s high-stakes visit to Ukraine this week to deliver the Trump’s administration’s latest peace plan has placed the service leader into the role of major international negotiator — a sharp contrast from his boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who spent the time in Washington sitting through White House meetings and firing angry missives at Democrats on social media.

Driscoll, a close friend of Vice President JD Vance, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday and planned to talk to NATO allies. The high-profile role for Driscoll — whom President Donald Trump refers to as his “drone guy” due to his embrace of cutting-edge tech — is emblematic of the Army chief’s rising prominence in the administration. He is increasingly the public face of ambitious projects and often sells the administration’s plans to reporters, unlike Hegseth, who has focused on the less glamorous tasks of promoting acquisition reform and troop physical fitness, and eliminated most journalists from the Pentagon.

The Army leader’s visit was a profound split screen between a rising star and a novice Pentagon chief who has faced numerous scandals and lost support from some in the administration.

“There’s not a lot of trust in Hegseth to deliver these messages to key leaders,” said a person familiar with administration dynamics. “There is more trust in Dan to do that right now.”

Driscoll, who attended Yale Law School with Vance and remains close friends with him, served in the Army for three and a half years. This included a deployment to Iraq as a cavalry scout platoon leader with the 10th Mountain Division. He later worked in investment banking in North Carolina.

On paper, his job as Army Secretary is mostly bureaucratic. He manages the service’s annual budget and its workforce of over one million active-duty, National Guard and reserve soldiers, as well as more than 330,000 civilian employees.

But he has started to take on a broader role that brings him to the White House frequently. He’s both acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and point person for National Guard deployments at the border and in U.S. cities.

“Dan’s relationship with JD certainly helped him get the job, but all of his success has been on the merits,” said a person close to the White House, who like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters. “He’s just really fucking good at the job.”

Neither the Army nor the Pentagon responded to requests for comment.

“Driscoll has been one of the most impressive members of Trump’s administration since his confirmation,” a second person close to the White House said. “While he didn’t have many relationships in the Trump orbit outside of the vice president prior to his nomination, he has built strong relationships inside the West Wing over the past year and is well-liked by senior staff.”

The increasing trust put in Driscoll by the White House appears to differ from Hegseth, whose trip to the Pacific last month was the first time since May that he’s had a largely solo foreign swing. And there has been friction between Hegseth and the White House over his personnel choices for top Pentagon jobs, including Hegseth’s chief of staff, Ricky Buria, according to the person close to the White House, with whom administration officials clashed.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles “doesn’t distrust Pete,” the person said. “She questions his judgment because of the Ricky thing.”

The White House disputed that there was any tension. “Susie has a longstanding relationship with Secretary Hegseth and thinks the world of him both personally and professionally,” spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “He is doing a wonderful job leading the Pentagon. Dan Driscoll is also widely respected, and his talent and experiences proves he is the perfect person to help the administration deliver peace to the war in Russia and Ukraine.”

While Hegseth had no public events on the books Thursday, Driscoll met with Zelenskyy for an hour at the Ukrainian president’s gold-inlaid office in Mariyinsky Palace. He was feted at a reception at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in one of the city’s most hip neighborhoods.

“We have seen in the last 36 hours, really a remarkable pace of diplomatic activity,” Julie Davis, the U.S. charge d’affairs in Ukraine, told reporters in Kyiv after she and Driscoll met with Zelenskyy. The Americans “discussed an aggressive timeline for these efforts.”

Driscoll will meet next with NATO allies in Europe and try to schedule a sit-down with Russian defense minister Andrey Belousov to push for a peace deal that has eluded the White House all year, according to a defense official with knowledge of the planning.

His Kyiv trip was originally aimed at striking a deal around some of Ukraine’s most innovative drone technologies, the official said, which Trump is eager to get done.

But the visit became far more consequential after a meeting at the White House last week when Trump gave his enthusiastic blessing for Driscoll to take major new diplomatic responsibilities, according to the official. Driscoll was at the White House on other business when the word came down.

The defense official described Driscoll’s meetings as “equal parts” battlefield innovation and diplomacy.

“The U.S. Army is a proven Ukraine ally,” the person said.

Driscoll’s expanded foreign policy role within the administration could continue. Another administration official said Driscoll’s goal was to make “incremental progress” on the three-day Ukraine visit. “I don’t think he expects to be getting the deal done,” the official said. “He expects to be hammering out a set of parts of it, or just moving the ball.”

Dasha Burns contributed to this report.